Basement Makeover with Annie Selke

This blog is sponsored by Annie Selke. All opinions are my own.

My basement has come a loooong way. When I first moved into my home in March 2019, the basement was my least favorite space of the house. The previous owners had made some unique updates to the area that didn’t necessarily jive with my design aesthetic which included vinyl peel and stick floor tiles and an accent wall with faux stone veneer. Slowly over the last three years I’ve updated the space with new laminate flooring, removed the stone veneer, and added board and batten. I also updated all the baseboards and added white shoe molding.

The last element I added was to convert the wood burning fireplace to an electric fireplace insert and DIY’ed a simple but statement-forward mantle surround.

Once I had the foundation set, it was time to really make the basement shine and I was super fortunate to team up with Annie Selke! Annie Selke would bring the perfect mix of sophisticated pop of color and textures I’ve come to adore when I design a room.

I knew I wanted to start the room design with wallpaper. I mean, if you have been following along on my design journey for any length of time you know I am a sucker for wallpaper and the basement would be no exception to getting this treatment. I decided to kick-off the design with this beautiful Samoa Indigo Grasscloth Wallpaper. It was the perfect shade of deep blue and would coordinate perfectly with the painted stairs leading to the basement as well as the painted navy blue ceiling in the office. I’ve always wanted to use grasscloth in some area of my home and the basement was the perfect space to go for it.

Initially I was going to hire out for the installation, but due to a variety of reasons I decided to give it a go and hang the wallpaper myself. While I am a DIY’er at heart, I will still talk myself out of trying new things because it seems daunting. I had never hung pasted wallpaper before, only peel & stick, so I procrastinated on this project a lot longer than I should have just out of sheer fear!

But soon enough, I got over it and purchased the necessary products for installation and OMG, this process was a lot easier than I thought. The wallpaper includes step-by-step instructions and once I got the first strip up, the rest was a breeze to install.

The next item I chose was the rug. My basement has a very interesting layout. At almost 20’ in length and only 10’ in width, the basement is quite narrow and standard sized rugs would either be too small or short in the space. So once I found the Citra Grey Hand Knotted Wool Rug, I knew the modern geometric pattern would be paired perfectly with the grasscloth wallpaper. I ordered two of the 6’ x 9’ rugs so I could lay them together to form one larger rug.

Once the wallpaper was hung and the rugs were in place, it was time to pull everything else together. I’m an eternal sucker for velvet and once I saw the Panne Velvet Berry Decorative Pillow, it was an immediate “Yes” and I knew I had to get two of them. I also wanted to grab additional pillows in the same tone as the wallpaper, so I also styled the sofa with the Lennon Indoor/Outdoor Decorative Pillow and the Omni Embroidered Denim/Natural Decorative Pillow (no longer sold). And of course, no room makeover is complete without a soft blanket to cuddle up with when watching TV. The Sheepy Fleece 2.0 Vetiver Throw has already come in handy a few nights while watching Netflix.

To wrap the design up, I purchased two Basquiat reproduction prints from Etsy that pulled from the colors in the pillows and sofa and it added just the right amount of modern quirk to the very traditional design elements in the basement.

My daughter has officially declared that the basement is her new favorite spot and honestly, I can’t disagree. It’s my new favorite spot too! I do have a few small details to add like sconces for accent lighting and maybe an ottoman to create the sectional feel I originally intended (the original sofa I wanted has been on backorder indefinitely). But for now, I am calling the basement done and couldn’t have been more thankful to have Annie Selkie as a partner to get it over the finish line!